Brand new newsletter!

I've wanted for some time to provide readers of my novels with a way of receiving updates via e-mail when new books are released or when special offers and promotions occur, but it's been hard to find a decent provider of this service that doesn't send annoying spam mails at the same time. Let's face it, nobody likes spam e-mails!

However, I've done it. My news letter will only be sent when a new book is about to be released or when something special happens like a "free" book offer on Amazon ( one is in the pipeline for next year, bargain hunters! )

If you'd like to sign up, then just click the link below. It takes only seconds, and it means you won't have to monitor my blog, Twitter feed or Facebook page to keep up to date with new releases.

http://eepurl.com/KoP8T

Merry Christmas to all my followers! :)

REVOLUTION!!

One of the greatest things about the incredible rise of e-publishing is that it allows authors to publish books that otherwise would probably never have seen the light of day. Since the enormous success of Eden I've decided to edit and release other titles that were unable to attract offers from traditional publishers, as there is no good reason not to do so as long as the content is up to standard.

So, this month, I will be releasing my thriller Revolution to Amazon for Kindle. This book was the last that I wrote before beginning work on the manuscript that became Covenant, the debut in the Ethan Warner series.

When a journalist goes missing in the wilderness of the war-torn former-Soviet state of Mordania, friend and former colleague Megan Mitchell is compelled to search for her. Thrown into the conflict between the democratic Mordanian Government and an uprising led by the ruthless General Mikhail Rameron, Megan must strive to locate her lost friend and avoid becoming a pawn in a dangerous game.

As American diplomats struggle to strike lucrative oil-deals with the Mordanian government while it remains in power, and the United Nations tries to protect the capital city Thessalia's safe-haven, a lone reporter reveals footage of the carnage within the country. In a rush to avoid American intervention, rebel forces start protecting villages and citizens inside the war zone, and a revolution begins: now, the news is not just reporting on the conflict, it is actually controlling it. With every report, the conflicting forces attempt to gain favour in the eyes of the world watching on their televisions in their millions.

Megan pushes herself to the limit in order to rescue her friend, but she is captured by rebel forces and abducted deep behind enemy lines, and there she discovers the horrific truth behind the conflict, and that nothing reported on television is ever as it seems...

Revolution will be released for publication around December 19th, 2013.

Marketing "Holo Sapiens"

So, once again I find myself about to start a promotional run for a new independent novel, and I couldn't have hoped to have been in a better position. Checking Amazon UK's stats this morning, Holo Sapiens is already #14 in the Post Apocalyptic category, with Eden just ahead of it at #7.

This is fabulous news - less than 2 weeks after its launch and Holo Sapiens is already featuring prominently on the store ( and at the 3,300 position in Kindle UK overall ). Once again, this is with no publicity other than here on the blog and on Facebook and Twitter, and a single industry blogger's review ( featured in my previous post ).

The story in the USA is different, however. With a launch at a different time of year, the remarkable set of circumstances that saw Eden rise to the top 1,000 position in just a few weeks no longer exist. Holo Sapiens moves between the 70,000 and 200,000 positions, which obviously means that the novel cannot be seen by many potential readers yet.

Fortunately, this time around I'm more savvy with the marketing and have already pre-booked my advertising campaign. This falls on the 11th, 12th and 13th of December. The first day is a one-day banner with popular e-book forum KBoards. The second and third are both one-day promotions on Kindle Nation Daily, for the Kindle Fire and ordinary Kindle respectively.

The idea of this campaign is not to propel Holo Sapiens into the Amazon Top 100 or anything ( although that would be nice! ) but merely to sell enough copies of the book to rise sufficiently in the rankings to get some visibility. From there, I'm hoping that the book's professional look and intriguing subject matter will sustain a decent ranking, generate regular sales and start the ball rolling.

Just like Eden, there's a long way to go, but I'm confident that the book is good enough to succeed even against the huge competition created by the Christmas season. I'm planning advertising for 2014 also, but I recently learned an interesting and valuable lesson over at KBoards: summer is, by and large, a low-selling period for most independent authors. This contradicts what I would have instinctively thought, that the holiday season would be a good time for people to be buying books to read on the beach etc. My only conclusion is that people do read books at the beach, but not so much on their Kindles - they buy paperbacks for their holidays.

The BIGGEST selling periods for independent authors seems to be post-Christmas, with many saying their sales spike during Boxing Day ( presumably as Kindles are received by countless people as gifts ). January and February are also big months for many self-published authors.

With this in mind, Eden's success was even more surprising during the summer of 2013, so I'm hoping that the more favourable marketing conditions of winter will help Holo Sapiens rise in the ranks over the next few months...

Awesome review for Holo Sapiens.

I was hugely excited to read this review of Holo Sapiens by respected industry blogger Kate Atherton on her blog "For Winter Nights". It really encapsulates so well the atmosphere of the novel.


For Winter Nights

EARLY RELEASE! "Holo Sapiens"

I decided over the weekend that, with the manuscript ready and the conversion complete, there seemed little point in waiting any longer. With industry bloggers keen to get hold of the book, I uploaded "Holo Sapiens" to Amazon a few days earlier than advertised.

You can get it here in the USA:

Holo Sapiens

And here in the UK:

Holo Sapiens


Although I haven't advertised the novel yet it's already pushed up into the best-seller charts for Post-Apocalyptic in the UK. Really hoping that this book takes off like Eden did before it.

Grab it fast! The book is on a promotional price for a short time only of $0.99 in the USA and £0.99 in the UK. Just like Eden, this is for a full-length, 100,000 word novel - a real bargain by any standards.

I hope that all my readers enjoy the book!!

Building a brand: Holo Sapiens

I've been hard at work ( as ever ) working on my latest novel, which is now being read by beta readers for editorial feedback. So far, one has commented that the novel is at least as good as Eden, perhaps even better. Editorials have been fairly light, with no major structural issues and the work limited to typos, clarity and general polishing of the manuscript.

I've also been busy enhancing the HTML coding for the book, ready for publication, by learning how to insert my company logo in the front in the manner of major publishers, how to remove the Table of Contents ( who uses these in fiction anyway? ) and generally sharpening up the presentation.

So far, everything's looking grand and the presentation of the e-book looks as professional now as a publication by one of the big traditional houses. I'll be updating Eden's file with the same logo and adjustments to maintain the brand appearance as soon as I can.

I'm also hard at work on the screenplay for Holo Sapiens. This may seem a bit premature, but the story concept is so unique that I want to put my stamp on it as early as possible. Having a full screenplay in place will help me to do that, and with the Knight-Hall Agency potentially able to put it in front of the Hollywood studios I'd be insane not to put it together.

I've let Eden slip down in the USA charts over the last couple of weeks, shifting my focus to Holo Sapiens in full. From all I've researched about self-publishing, the best advert for one novel is often another by the same author. I'm hoping that the release of Holo Sapiens, if all goes to plan, will push Eden back up the charts by association. That said, Eden is still in the top 1,000 or so in the UK so it's doing very well all by itself. In the USA it's around the 6,000 mark in Kindle Paid, still not bad considering the competition.

My next work will be for my literary agent, a crime-thriller with a twist that should take me until the early new year to complete. After that, it's a full year of writing for me, completing the following titles:

EDEN: Redemption.

Holo Sapiens: Homo Immortalis

Soul Seekers: Ghost Ship  ( Young adult series )

2014 is going to be as busy as 2013!

"Holo Sapiens" promotional video

My new video for "Holo Sapiens"! Just 26 days to go until publication :)

I'm also delighted to report that "Eden" has now sold over 10,000 copies and is still going strong! Very much looking forward to seeing how my growing list of titles affect each other in terms of sales and 'reach' to new potential readers...

My first book video!

Since first self-publishing a novel, I've been thinking a lot about how to further spread the word of my work. I knew a lot of authors had used videos to do so, so I decided to give it a whirl. With my company's logo sorted, I wanted to produce something that looks very professional so that I can advertise my work in the manner of a traditional publishing house.

The idea is to keep all of my self-published works under a highly visible banner, which will feature in all of them rather like a cover, so that hopefully readers will start to associate good quality books with both my name as an author and also with Fictum, my company.

The video is for "Eden", which is still selling a hundred copies a day months after it was first published. It will soon be joined by "Holo Sapiens" at the end of November.

My new company logo! :)

I've recently designed a logo for my company. As I'm self-publishing as well now, it seemed appropriate to place those publications beneath a recognisable banner. As I'm also planning to produce short videos to advertise my books it helps to create product recognition, a bit like film studios.

I had a great deal of fun creating them, and hopefully in the future they'll appear on reading devices at the start of my books  :)

For those of you wondering - the company name is Latin for fiction.

Here's the static logo:

And here's the animation:

 

 



Guest Post: Traditional versus self-publishing

I was fortunate enough recently to be offered the chance to guest post on book reviewer Jera's Jamboree blog, talking about the my experiences with both traditional and self-publishing. The link below will take you to the post.

http://jerasjamboree.com/2013/10/21/jeras-jamboree-guest-author-dean-crawford-published-vs-self-published/


In other news, Holo-Sapiens is nearing its beta-reader stage. Structural edits are almost complete and I'm now working on dialogue, character, prose and narrative, ironing out smaller errors and generally polishing the novel.

Eden remains high in Kindle's Paid rankings, despite the efforts of a "sock-puppet" reviewer in the USA ( a sock-puppet is a reviewer account operated by a rival author or somebody close to them ) who placed a negative review of Eden, false accusations and repeated links to said rival author's novels in an attempt to derail my sales and promote their own. I've reported their activity and evidence proving their link to the rival author to Amazon. In a quirk of fate and what I like to think of as justice, Eden shot up over a thousand places into the Top 700 after the review appeared, which just goes to show that crime doesn't pay.

I hadn't encountered this kind of behaviour before, and as the 'review' contained some quite offensive remarks I felt compelled to reply to it as well as report it. This led to the 'reviewer' hastily altering their comments and removing their links in an attempt to avoid any action by Amazon. If there's a next time, I'll know better.

( UPDATE: Amazon have removed the offending review as it was indeed in breach of their rules. )

HOLO SAPIENS publication date!

I've finally got a date set-in-stone for HOLO SAPIENS. It will be published direct to Kindle on Thursday November 28th, 2013. Pre-orders won't be available. I'm hard at work on my edits, and the novel is shaping up to be perhaps my favourite so far!

EDEN is still doing fabulously. It has sold close to 10,000 copies and is maintaining strong positions in the Kindle Paid charts on both sides of the Atlantic. I'm hugely excited to see what happens when HOLO SAPIENS hits the digital shelves, and how it affects EDEN's position.

I'm also guest-posting on the Fiction Addiction blog soon, writing about my experiences with digital publishing and traditional publishing and how the market place has changed so much over the past two years. I'll place links here when the post goes live..

New novel due for e-publication, November 2013: HOLO SAPIENS!

It's here! The artwork is finally done, the edits are well on their way and I can confirm that my latest novel, HOLO SAPIENS, will be published in November 2013! The exact date it will appear is to be confirmed and I'll share it here and in the usual places as soon as I can!

New First Draft completed!!

I've been hard at work for the past couple of weeks, writing to a self-imposed regime of about 4,000 words per day in order to complete the first draft of my next novel. This is an entirely new work, based upon a high-concept idea I came up with during the summer that I really felt strongly about. Sometimes, as an author, I get really excited about a new plot and start tearing along for days as ideas and storylines rush out almost as fast as I can write them down. This burst of creativity is then followed by a few weeks of developing the plot details and adding depth to the story before actually sitting down and writing it.

With the Ethan Warner series, I used to plot almost every single possible detail before writing, but I changed that approach with EDEN in order to let the characters develop more. The new approach worked well, and with the new WIP I've done something in-between, plotting about 50% of the story using key points and scenes that I knew I wanted to see, and then letting the characters kind of build themselves as the story went along.

This approach has produced some great characters who have come alive as I've written the draft, but they have changed over the course of the story in their motives etc as their characters have developed, so now I've got to go through the first structural edit and make sure that those characters become a little more consistent in their story journey, along with all the other essential plot lines being ironed out and polished. In general I'm really very happy with my new method, as it allows new ideas to pop up throughout the story, often changing it ways I hadn't imagined before writing it.

In other news, EDEN remains high in the UK Amazon Kindle chart ( in the 300s ) and in the USA chart ( 1,100 ish ), and is selling anything between 130 and 200 copies per day. I did some minor further advertising in the USA, but all in all the book seems to be selling itself without any further input from me. Given its high star-rating, especially in the UK, I'm assuming that the good sales are based on the book's merits alone - gaining sales traction as its reputation gets better as a "good read". I'm keeping an eye on it and also plotting the sequel, EDEN: REDEMPTION, which I'll publish sometime early in 2014, as for now I'm focusing on my two current WIPs.

More news as it comes in, and I'll post cover-art for the new high-concept novel soon if it becomes a self-published work instead of traditionally published.

Increasing workload and general publishing news.

I'm finally back into my routine after a week and a half spent reading the final proofs for two of my traditionally published novels. APOCALYPSE is now ready for printing in the USA, although I have not yet seen any cover artwork, while here in the UK the next Ethan Warner novel, now titled THE ETERNITY PROJECT, is also ready for printing and I've been sent the wonderful cover art, which is below:

The completion of these two proof read-throughs means that I'm now back at my desk and writing to a strict self-imposed regime. I aim to write no less than 4,000 words per day, and am working on three different projects. The first is an epic sci-fi novel that I've been plotting and writing now for over a month, the story built around a central idea that is entirely unique and immensely compelling. The novel could be a real hit if I can get it right, so it's my priority right now ( before somebody else comes up with the idea! ). The second project is a crime novel for my agent, Luigi Bonomi, which we're hoping will go to traditional publishers later this year. The third project is the sequel to EDEN, which is doing so incredibly well right now across Amazon's various sites. I'm in the basic plotting stage at the moment, but as EDEN was always planned to be the first in a trilogy of stories the basic elements are in place. It's more an issue of how to tell the story in a satisfying way for the reader that's my focus at the moment, as I don't want the sequel to be just a repeat of the debut.

EDEN remains high in the UK chart, and seems to climb by about a hundred places each passing week. Next week marks two months since the novel was launched exclusively to Amazon, during which I've sold more than 4,000 copies. The title has slipped slightly over in the USA, but this is largely due to the big leap in sales when I bought advertising there, the tail-off in sales afterward accounting for the decrease. A new price and some more advertising is in the pipeline so hopefully I'll be able to continue the book's upward climb soon.

Between now and next Spring it's my aim to have at least three self-published titles available exclusively through Amazon at low prices. This longer-term goal, and the combined sales and brand-awareness, is part of a plan to achieve wider success within the self-published world to keep me writing for a living between traditional contracts with publishing houses. With things going ever more digital in publishing, I want to make my mark there and establish a permanent presence sooner rather than later. The more people who become aware that they can buy my books at truly excellent prices in digital form, the better off I'll be when the paperback market begins to follow the already collapsing hardback market.

I'll report in next week with EDEN's two-month figures, and hopefully some good news on USA advertising...

Self publishing and self promotion.

Those of you who are following my experiment in self-publishing here on my blog will know that in my last post I revealed that I would be buying some digital promotion over in the USA. Some research revealed that doing so had worked well for other authors writing in a similar genre to me, so I thought it was worth a shot as although Eden was already doing very well I wanted to give it a boost if I could.

For the frankly meagre sum of $99 I bought a one day Kindle Fire advert in a digital publication across the pond and crossed my fingers. The result was hugely impressive - I awoke the next morning to find that Eden had leaped in the Amazon.com overall chart from the 1,051 position to the 585 position, an immense leap in sales! Eden has since slipped back a little but the experiment effectively paid for itself several times over in the next few days.

Would I do it again? Yes, definitely, but only at launch day, to get the title high into the charts as quickly as possible in conjunction with other promotional efforts. The exposure definitely works well and has a bit of a "tail", in that when the promotion ends sales don't plummet back but decrease only slowly. The new exposure not only means more sales but also hopefully more reviews - if they're positive it increases the confidence of other potential readers that your book is worth a go, keeping the title's momentum going.

In the UK, things are holding steady with the book selling around 60 copies per day ( and around 130 per day in the USA ). The important thing to remember is that these sales happen seven days per week, so Eden is selling well over 1,000 copies each week, a very respectable figure at this early stage just seven weeks after publication. I'm hoping that this will gradually grow over time now as there is clearly an appetite for this kind of novel. However, all of the advice I've received tells me that there is one thing I can do that will definitely increase sales of Eden, one thing that is more effective than any amount of advertising, blogging, Tweeting etc and that's to write the sequel! Doing so is now a priority for me, to bolster the first book's sales and to build a series of full-length novels that are instantly available to readers 24/7 at reasonable prices. It's a business model that has very few flaws, and I'm eager to build upon that now that my first attempt has been so successful.

Onward and upward!

Self publishing news and revelations!

It's been another hugely exciting week for me since my last post here, with much progress in Eden's climb of the Amazon charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Firstly, the new chart positions;

In the UK Eden is now in the 600s, moving about a bit but holding steady. In the USA it's in the 1,500s and doing much the same. These new chart positions represent a huge leap on last weeks' and show continued growth in sales that is much greater than expected: i.e, sales have actually doubled again due to the continued rise with almost 2,000 copies sold and no sign of a dip ( so far ).

I have also appeared in Amazon.com's brand new Top #100 Authors list, which is based on all copies of all books sold by authors, and updated hourly.

This is immensely exciting as the Amazon site in the USA is absolutely vast, with some 2,000,000 Kindle titles available. To appear in this new chart is a huge milestone for me and I can't believe that it's happened. I'm rubbing shoulders with HUGE names from both sides of the Atlantic, and really hope that this author list is taken up by Amazon UK and becomes a permanent feature as the exposure to new audiences is potentially immense.

Further news involves my decision, based on Eden's success in the USA without any publicity, to purchase some advertising. I recently realised that due to the furore over authors buying or creating fake reviews for their books ( so-called sock puppets ) I had neglected to consider buying genuine advertising space on major websites for my books. Far from being hideously expensive as I had feared, and following in the footsteps of other self-publishing authors more experienced than myself, buying advertising space in on-line publications in the USA has proved both easy and relatively affordable. The adverts have not yet been published, but I'm eagerly awaiting the effect on Eden's chart positions on Amazon.com to see what, if any, impact they have on sales. If things go as well as they have for other authors, I may consider purchasing more, perhaps here in the UK too. I'll update here on the blog as soon as I have anything to report.

I've been working hard on a brand new project, along with a crime novel for my agent and plotting the sequel to Eden, but have contracted a cold from nowhere despite the sunshine we've been enjoying in the UK so have been slowed down a bit ( yesterday I wrote 3,000 words, a quarter down on my usual output ). Hopefully I'll get better soon, but due to still feeling rough this is the end of my blog post for this week. Hopefully I'll have more exciting self-publishing news to add soon!

The BIG numbers - EDEN's first full month.

It's been just over one month since I self-published Eden to Kindle on Amazon, and to be entirely honest I did not think that I would be sharing such amazing sales figures as I am about to. The vast majority of my research, reading the experiences of other self-published authors, suggested to me that it would be a long haul over many months to gain sufficient recognition to achieve successful chart positions. In fact, for various reasons, in my case the reverse has been true. This is almost certainly due to my already having a reader-base through traditional publication by Simon & Schuster. However, Eden has also shot up in the charts on Amazon.com and my presence there is far smaller than in the UK. In addition I have done absolutely no publicity for the title in the USA, which suggests something else is at work.

First though, the figures. These are the sales I've achieved for Eden in its first month:

UK: 904 copies sold.

USA: 312 copies sold.

Other territories: 14 copies sold.

My highest ranking to date on Amazon UK in the paid Kindle chart so far has been #715.
My highest ranking to date on Amazon.com's paid Kindle chart is ( currently ) #2,823.

To put these chart positions into some kind of context, there are estimated to be around 750,000 Kindle books in the UK chart and some 2,000,000 in the USA.

A look back across my posts charting my self-publishing experiment reveals a series of jolts as the book climbed the charts here in the UK, and a similar picture in the USA ( although slower to start there ). Chief among the things that I have learned so far is that when a book is published to Kindle it must be featured in relevant categories that also give the book a chance to stand out, and that reaching a chart position within those categories guarantees an increase in sales as the title's visibility and exposure to new readers increases. Being seen is everything in this business, whether you're traditionally published or doing it for yourself. Eden jumped 2,000 places virtually overnight when it entered the Top 100 in the post-apocalyptic category, both here and in the USA. That got the ball rolling in each case, with sales doubling week on week.

But what has driven sales in the USA? My traditionally published books are not as well known there, I have approached no bloggers or performed any other publicity, digital or otherwise, and yet in a chart of over two million books Eden is now ranking in the top 0.1% of all titles. I've spent much of the weekend pondering this, and the only solution I can think of is that a combination of low price, professional cover design, compelling subject matter and ( so far ) very positive reviews are helping Eden stand out from an already overcrowded self-publishing market. I read again and again reviews of SP books lamenting the poor editing, the weak plotting, the rushed narrative etc etc. Only a small number of authors are patient and determined enough to produce an industry-quality book for self-publishing and those authors do seem to get noticed more quickly by readers eager to discover a new author. The lesson here is that it's worth having books professionally edited, having covers designed and really thinking about how to present your self-published novel to the public, because the only thing holding back everybody else is the fact that they didn't do those things and that's never going to change. You can't just whack out 50,000 words and expect it to sell well, but that's what the majority do. Your book's got to be good, then it's got to be made better, and better again, and then it's got to be edited, publicised and sold. I'm not going to compare Eden to self-published books that have sold hundreds of thousands, but it's on the right track so far.

While I don't think that Eden has charted so high solely because of my efforts to produce a top-quality book, in the absence of any other factors I do think that those efforts are largely responsible for the book's rise. What I'm hoping now is that the rise continues, and that charting in specific categories leads to a "snowball effect" on sales, a phenomenon noted by many other self-published authors before me. Only time will tell, but right now I think that I've achieved another major milestone in publishing, and that means that Eden's sequel is now a priority. I'd decided only to write a sequel if Eden sold well and received predominantly positive reviews, and that's definitely happened. More to the point, if any book I write is deemed unsuitable for the current publishing market in the future, it will then be self-published instead. There really is no good reason now not to.

I'll update again next week, but also include other observations about digital and self-publishing rather than sustain a blow-by-blow account of the book's position in the charts.

EDEN: week four of self-publication!

It's been a hell of a week, to say the least.

Since my last post I've learned even more about how Amazon's Kindle rankings work, and also seen Eden climb ever further up the charts. This morning it reached #796 in the overall chart, although it has slipped a little way since and at the time of writing is at #824. More amazing though is that the book is now charting on Amazon.com's Post-Apocalyptic category at #80 and is at #12,855 overall.

I know that I've already mentioned that there has been very little publicity surrounding the novel, but it seems important because so many self-published authors struggle to obtain blog reviews and such like. I have only received one industry blog-review so far, the rest being ordinary reader's reviews, but it hasn't stopped the book's rapid rise up the charts. However, there are things that I did get wrong.

Upon reflection, I think that I should have done more to create a "buzz" around the launch of the book. Many self-published authors ( and traditional publishers too ) make much fuss about the importance of this and I'm beginning to understand why: sell a hundred books on your first day and you'll shoot straight into the Kindle UK chart at the 500 mark, reach a high position in your respective categories and get seen earlier by more people, potentially hastening a book's rise. At least when I'm ready to publish Eden's sequel I'll have this knowledge at hand.

Anyway, I have no complaints about Eden's success so far. I have also learned that Kindle UK sales seem to slump at weekends. Eden dropped to the 1,100 position over the weekend, but maintained its position in the category charts. This seems to be because all other books experienced a similar slump, with the likely exception of the biggest names, and upon Monday morning all books leaped up again. Has anybody else  noticed this, or have an explanation for it?

I'll update soon with my total number of copies sold in my first month ( probably next Monday ) but already it's far higher than I expected and rising week on week. Keeping my fingers crossed that this trend continues apace...

"EDEN": could it actually happen?

Several readers have recently asked me if the natural apocalypse that occurs in my novel Eden is a real phenomenon and whether it could literally bring about the downfall of civilisation in the way described?

The answer is very much "yes", but don't take my word for it;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10103492/Solar-storm-could-leave-Britain-without-power-for-months.html

NASA have been warning the US Government for the last five years that our sun is long overdue a solar super-storm, and if we're in the firing line then it is quite literally the end of everything, for we would be utterly unable to rebuild our infrastructure quickly enough to prevent our technological downfall. Eden is not just a work of fiction, but an account of what our world might be like in the aftermath of such a terrific and widespread collapse.

You have been warned....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/EDEN-ebook/dp/B00E5MRF66/ref=la_B004UO651U_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1376419316&sr=1-5

EDEN: Week 3!

So, huge news since last week's update on my self-publishing experiment!

I decided to alter the categories in which Eden appears on Amazon's Kindle page. Since its launch, the novel had been under the Crime, Thriller & Mystery section in Action & Adventure and Suspense categories ( Amazon only lets you pick two categories these days ). Being in these two categories meant that the novel was effectively competing with every other thriller novel in the world, reducing its chances of getting noticed. Even so, the book had reached the 2,500 spot in the rankings and was continuing to climb. I didn't want to risk upsetting this trend but felt it was worth a try to position the book in categories that would help it to stand out more. Furthermore, a couple of the book's reviews mentioned a few typos, so I wanted to hunt them out, correct them and re-upload the perfected novel anyway, so it seemed like the right time to do it.

In the end, based on the placement of other novels of a similar type, I switched Eden across to the Science Fiction category - Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian respectively. I then went to bed with my fingers crossed for good news.

I awoke to the news that Eden had shot up into the 1,400 position!! I couldn't believe it, but overnight the book had risen much higher in the charts, and also hit the Science Fiction Top 100! At the time of writing this post, Eden is holding steady at 1,270 in Kindle Paid and is #3 in the Post-Apocalyptic category and #7 in the Dystopian category.

I knew that choosing an accurate category was important, but this has led to a re-doubling of sales, with Eden now selling around 70 copies per day. Fingers crossed now that a few of the blog reviews I've been waiting for will appear. Eden's currently got five reviews, all 5-star, so hoping to build upon that over the coming week

In other news, I'm half way through a first draft of a futuristic thriller which I'm keeping under wraps at the moment, and about to start a first draft of a new crime novel for my literary agent Luigi Bonomi. Keeping busy, but finding myself unable to refrain from checking how Eden's doing at least once an hour!!

EDEN: Week 2!

Well, I didn't expect this to happen!

Just two weeks after being published to Amazon, "Eden" has rocketed up the charts and at the time of writing is in position 2,600 in the Kindle UK chart ( paid ) which means the book is currently selling about 40 copies per day. It has garnered three reviews, all five stars, and I've had considerable feedback via my Facebook Fan Page and e-mail telling me that it is the best book I've written so far!

Of course, this does not mean that the book will automatically continue to climb the charts on its own, but its success so far is more than I'd dared hope for, especially since my efforts to gain promotional support in the form of blogger reviews and interviews has yet to take-off.

To date six very friendly bloggers have agreed to review Eden, doing so over the next couple of months depending on their very busy schedules. Some that I approached have not replied, but as it's holiday season this is to be expected. Many do say on their websites that due to the volume of requests they do not have time to reply individually. Again, par for the course and understandable.

So what's causing the rapid climb? I'd love to say that my carefully crafted plan is behind it all, but I suspect that it's a mixture of things, some that I dreamed up and others that I borrowed from other successful self-published authors. The price, for one thing, I think is "right". In these tough economic times, people need to be able to afford to take a chance on an author they maybe haven't heard of. If I'm polishing my own ego then I think my cover design is attention grabbing and says "big book" to browsers on the Internet. I think also that timing the launch alongside the fourth Ethan Warner novel may have drawn attention to Eden ( I'm thinking that people see The Chimera Secret while browsing in bookshops, wander home and find my author page to buy the book for their Kindle, and then spot Eden and decide to give that a go too, or even in place of The Chimera Secret, because of the lower price ).

But I think that there may be something else too: the fact that more and more people are switching over to digital books. We're behind the USA on this in Europe, but it's becoming more and more obvious that with hardback sales already in free fall, paperback sales are only going to go the same way. This is one reason why I've taken to digital publishing alongside traditional contracts: once you've seen the writing on the wall, it's not wise to hang around. If I'd published Eden to Kindle two years ago, I'm not sure that I would have seen the same sales.

There's still a long way to go, but so far Eden really is moving in the right direction and my cunning plan for digital domination appears, for the time being, to be working. More updates soon...

Self-publishing versus traditional publishing.

While browsing Twitter recently I discovered a link to an article with American self-published author Hugh Howey. For those of you who haven't heard of him, Hugh's ninth novel, "Wool", went viral and became a huge best-seller. James Cameron bought the film rights, and Hugh's now a full-time author. The link below will take you to the article, written in April 2013:


http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/hugh_howey_self_publishing_is_the_future_and_great_for_writers/


I found this all incredibly interesting, as it details in some length the fact that many authors are now making a tidy living from self-publishing. They're not names you'd likely have heard of, but their books occupy what is sometimes called the "fat" end of the tail. This refers to a graph of all book sales, whether digital or traditional. A small number of authors occupy the top, high-earning part of the graph, while the vast majority occupy the long "tail" of the graph along the bottom. But there is a small chunk, buried deep in the bottom left corner of that graph, where a sizeable number of authors earn enough to make a difference in their lives without ever getting famous. Figures vary, but as the above article describes, they can be earning anything from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a month.

This sweet-spot is where I think many authors aspire to be; nobody expects to be the next J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown, but all who work hard at writing good material aim to earn a living from it, and the number of people achieving this is on the rise on both sides of the Atlantic.

It led me to think about how best to get there. The fact is that right now I rely on traditional publishing contracts to earn a living, and right now that's where I want to remain as no author can achieve the brand awareness that a major publishing house can provide. But, and it's a big but, right now I can produce up to three novels per year writing full time. Every time one of those novels isn't quite right for editors in the big publishing houses, it will be self-published. There's simply no longer any good reason not to. Why rely on one book to be in the sweet spot in the charts? Why not two, or four, or ten?

Eden is still climbing the charts, reaching the mid-3000 spot this morning and selling about 30 copies per day. That's further on than it was last week, and it now has 3 five-star reviews. My fourth Ethan Warner book, The Chimera Secret, is vying for position with it in the charts. Chimera has an international publisher behind it. Eden has nothing but me. See what I mean...?

EDEN: the first week!

It's been seven days since I uploaded my treasured self-published novel Eden onto Amazon's Kindle service. At this time it has sold 71 copies so far and is settling in nicely at around 10 copies per day, which places it around the 6,000 mark in the rankings on Amazon's UK chart. This is all very interesting to me as it gives some kind of perspective on what the rankings really mean to an author watching a particular book.

Remarkably, after just two days, Eden received an unsolicited review from a Top 1000 Amazon reviewer in the USA, who gave a glowing testimony and a 4-star rating.

So far, so good. There has been absolutely no publicity for this title except for me to post here, on my Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter, so many of the initial sales are likely to have been made by fans of the Ethan Warner series. But behind the scenes I've been hard at work sending out review requests to book bloggers on both sides of the Atlantic. So far, I've had three confirm that they will be reviewing Eden ( one had already bought it! ) so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for good reviews, which help to move new titles up the ranking as prospective buyers gain their confidence in a title by the reviews of others.

I think it's fair to assume that my traditional publishing success has given me a better launch-pad than an author starting out from scratch with a self-published title. What I have to do now is build upon that initial success and try to generate momentum around the title - the more positive reviews the book gets, the higher it will climb in the charts, provided I keep working at the publicity side of things.

I think also that the success of The Chimera Secret, which is selling fast at the moment and at the time of writing has eight reviews, all 5-stars, may be helping people to spot my bargain priced thriller on my Amazon Author Page. Speaking of price, it's still at £1.02 - I want it at £0.99, so will tinker again with the pricing structure tonight to get it right.

I'll be keeping that price for the foreseeable future, and watching the ratings with interest to see if the arrival of reviews affects the book's position. I suspect that reaching the top ( if the book can and does ) will be a long-haul rather than a meteoric rise, but it will be worth it for me to have broke through in both the traditional and the digital publishing world...

EDEN is here!

Eden is now available! I've launched the book and it's up on Amazon worldwide. For fans of my books or regular visitors here, it's at a special launch price of £1.02 in the UK and $1.56 in the USA and Canada. Grab it at this fab price and enjoy!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/EDEN-ebook/dp/B00E5MRF66/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374863660&sr=1-1&keywords=dean+crawford+eden

Self publishing : Kindle sales rankings.

I've been having an interesting few weeks watching the sales rankings on Amazon, keeping an eye on the success of both The Chimera Secret ( Ethan Warner's fourth outing ) and Soul Seekers ( my first self-published title ). I've never been a fan of staring at rankings - I've always felt that I should be busy writing instead and with Simon & Schuster's immense marketing campaigns for the Ethan Warner series, getting noticed has not been an issue so far in my career. Now, though, with my valiant new venture into self publishing underway, rankings have taken on a new importance.

Chimera was on offer at £0.99 for a month before the release of the paperback on July 18th, and it peaked in the 1,380 position at this price. Since heading back to full price it's slid down the charts a bit, but remains high enough to be attracting attention ( 3,000 or so at the time of writing ).

Soul Seekers peaked at around 1,000 in the Kindle chart before slipping back down to about 10,000. This is quite amazing as I have not yet performed any publicity for the book. I have approached a small number of Young Adult book bloggers for reviews, but haven't heard back yet and am not chasing for now. I suspect a few fans of Ethan Warner bought copies speculatively, and I know one of them reviewed it favourably on Amazon after reading it.

These figures might not mean much to some, but as a rule of thumb if a book hits the Kindle ( paid )1,000 position it's selling about 100 copies per day. Get to the 100 position and you're selling 1,000 or so per day.

After thinking about all of this for a day or two, I think that Chimera probably would have broken into the top 100 if it had stayed at the same low price - it was climbing ever-faster before the promotion ended and without a huge investment in marketing from either myself or the publisher. Even now, it's selling well at four times it's original price. Soul Seekers ( self published through my literary agent ) is priced a little too high for my liking and is also in a different genre to my traditionally published books, so to have reached so high and still be selling ( albeit in lower numbers for the time being ) is a great start.

The BIG test, for me, will be the launch of EDEN. This is my first completely self-published title, and like the Ethan Warner books is a combination of thriller and adventure. I'm doing some last minute research on pricing, categories and marketing methods as I await my editorials, and then it'll be the last application of polish on the manuscript and the various descriptions for Amazon before the launch. Fingers crossed, the genre placement, the price and the high ratings of all of my books will be enough to push this new title up where I want to see it: the top 100.

I should have a launch date set within a week or so, and will continue to update on how my other books are doing soon ( eight reviews at the time of writing for Chimera, two for Soul Seekers, all of them five stars!! )

"EDEN" - my new thriller!

I'm very excited to share my brand new thriller's jacket art! Do let me know what you think of it!

"EDEN" is a post-apocalyptic thriller and will be available on all e-readers. The publication date and price are to be released very soon, but feel free to ask anything you like about the forthcoming title.

Self publishing professionalism: formatting your novel.

It's an oft-reported fact that a huge portion of all self published novels available out there on the Internet are poorly formatted, badly edited ( if at all ) and generally presented in a manner that guarantees that anybody purchasing a book from that author won't be coming back for more.

As a traditionally published author, my e-books have had the benefit of editorial teams ensuring that they appear as perfect and professional as possible to my readers. Now that I'm self publishing a few titles, I have to live up to that standard or risk alienating existing fans and driving away potential new ones, and with more and more titles clogging up the system it's getting harder to get noticed by the day. To really stand out, my novel ( and yours ) absolutely has to be presented perfectly if it's not to be lost among the quagmire of poorly written and formatted novels swamping digital servers around the globe.

The bottom line is that getting a novel written well is only the first step in self publishing. A title must be professionally edited, a cover must be professionally designed and content must be perfectly formatted to appear correctly on all e-readers. For the author determined to achieve success, this means hiring an editor, a designer and somebody with HTML skills necessary to convert their beloved tome correctly ( or paying Amazon to do it all for you ).

Or does it?

I'm quite lucky in that my former profession was graphic-design and I'm also fairly computer literate, so this means that two out of three tasks I can perform myself, to a degree. However I'm intending to recruit an editor to check my next self published title out before releasing it to the world. The cover is already designed, by myself, and opinions so far are that it looks great. So that leaves the HTML side of things...

Most people don't like computer coding, and nor do I really. But all HTML represents is a language that all computerised devices view in the same way. During my research I came across a blogger who, for the benefit of millions of aspiring authors, has put online a detailed step-by-step review of how to convert your book all by yourself. The link is here;

http://guidohenkel.com/2010/12/take-pride-in-your-ebook-formatting/

I've just used this process on my forthcoming self published thriller, and it has produced awesome results. I really couldn't be happier, so if you're struggling with your own formatting procedure then head over to the site and have a good read. You won't regret it!

I'm just waiting for my editors ( my mum and fiancé! ) to get back to me regarding the novel, which will hopefully be in a week or two. Once the edits are done, I'll start the process of sharing the cover, picking a launch date and hopefully whipping up some interest in the title on-line...

Some of my new articles recently published!

I've been fortunate enough to have had two articles published on-line, both concerning the Ethan Warner series of books and how I go about researching them. You can find the articles by clicking the links below:

The first is for my publisher, Simon & Schuster, on their Dark Pages website:

http://www.thedarkpages.co.uk/case-studies


The second is for Books Monthly's features section:

http://www.booksmonthly.co.uk/dean.html

Full of facts and stories taken directly from some of my novels. Enjoy!

Promoting a self-published novel.

So, the experiment begins...

My self-published novel "Soul Seekers" is now available on Kindle for the princely sum of £2.01 in the UK and $3.10 in the USA. However, lost among a million other digital titles it's not going to get very far on its own.

When the title appeared on Kindle, I made my first steps in self-promotion by releasing details of the novel here, on my Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter. I also entered the title details on Goodreads in case fans of my Ethan Warner series wanted to take a look.

This resulted in a flurry of early sales, pushing the title up into the 3,000 position ( approx. ) for a couple of days. Then, as the early buyers dropped away, as expected the title has gradually slid far down the chart. This is normal as my reach through Twitter, Facebook etc probably only amounts to a few hundred people, of whom only a small fraction will buy the book.

What begins now is the proper promotion of the title. Things change fast in self-publishing, and I've noticed in my research that methods that once were considered useful no longer work and that there are far more people using things like forums and so on to promote their work. A more crowded market means it becomes harder to get noticed, and brand awareness is the key to higher sales.

My first steps have been to approach avid book bloggers and request reviews. This is usually done via e-mail, and I have prepared a document that presents my work in as professional a manner as possible. Being a successfully published author already may ( or may not ) give me a slight advantage over somebody starting from scratch, but a professional approach gives a blogger some confidence that the novel itself will also be professional, and that applies to all authors.

Here's an image of my document, drawn up to give potential blog reviewers a simple at-a-glance look at my novel.

 

 

I'm currently awaiting replies, and also a few reviews from fans of the Ethan Warner books who have purchased Soul Seekers.

 

I also managed to get an idea of just how many books you need to sell via Kindle to make it up into the top 100 and the top 10. You need to sell around 200+ copies per day to break into the top 100, and the top 10 titles can be selling as many as 3,000 per day. The general opinion is that it's very hard to break through unless you're already a well-known name or your book is available for £0.99 or less. That said, popularity does grow as books gain positive reviews and word-of-mouth, still the best advertising tool, spreads awareness of an author's work.

 

 

I'll report back here should anything interesting occur over the next few days...

Self Publishing Experiment.

When I started this blog back in 2006, it was with the aim of recording my journey to achieve the "impossible": a traditional publishing deal, via a literary agent, for my works of commercial fiction. I had no desire to approach vanity publishers - I wanted to get my books onto the shelves of bookstores up and down the country.

In 2010, contrary to all of the naysayers and the admittedly enormous odds, I achieved my goal and am now a happily contracted full-time author. And at the end of 2012, being so incredibly busy with my writing, I blogged here that I would be moving away from this blog as it had achieved all that I had hoped it would and would remain as a record for other aspiring writers who might come this way of what I went through.

However, with the swiftly changing face of the publishing industry now consumed by the incredible rise of digital print ( enough of which has already been written across the Internet ) I have decided to do something that many of my readers and followers might think a bit odd. Having achieved a traditional publishing deal, I'm now going to attempt self-publishing alongside my traditional contracts.

The reasons for this are many and varied, but the driving force behind my decision is that those who succeed do so by adapting to change: survival of the smartest ( hopefully!). The digital market is not just here to stay, it is the future. After studying the publishing world for several months, and talking to many other authors from both sides of the divide, I have decided that if I don't get involved in it, then the new market might well pass me by before I can make my mark upon it.

The simple truth is that authors these days no longer need rely only on major traditional publishers to get their work noticed. The list of names who have achieved enormous success through self-publishing is growing every day and those who have done so got there not by luck at all: it was through the same hard work as any author, traditionally published or not.

One of my books, written for a major publisher, was recently turned down not because it was unready or poorly written ( in fact the editor in question loved it ). It was rejected because "the market was not receptive to it right now". In other words, "people aren't buying that kind of book so we can't guarantee a profit in buying it". That book is my newly self-published YA title, "Soul Seekers".

The reason for me deciding not to simply accept their decision but to self-publish is that everybody who read the draft of the novel loved it. To me, that means that other people will probably love it too. Traditional publishing is a business, and if a business model looks bad then it's not wise to put money behind it. But for the self-publishing author, the trials of convincing a marketing department and a sales department that a title is worth buying are removed. There is little outlay required, and the book can be on the market within weeks. Then the really hard work begins - effectively promoting that work.

So, in summary, I'm going to record an entirely new journey. While I remain hard at work on traditional publishing contracts I'm also going to self-publish titles which are turned down for business and market-forces reasons by traditional publishers, and see whether their decisions were the right ones or whether my gut instinct for a "good" book is better.

The new journey starts here. This blog is active again and I'll try and post updates as regularly as my schedule allows. I should point out that this will not involve me endlessly posting adverts for my novels: I don't believe in that kind of "spam marketing" as it annoys the hell out of me. Instead, I'll post what I learn, how things are going in terms of sales, how sales improve ( again, hopefully ) as I learn to promote the books and so on.

Let's see if one of the BIG publishers was wrong and I was right...

SOUL SEEKERS!!

I'm excited to announce that my brand new Young Adult title "Soul Seekers" has launched on Kindle both in the UK and the USA. The UK price for the book is just £2.01, a great bargain for the first in a series of supernatural thrillers for younger readers.

If you have children who enjoy reading, please do give Soul Seekers a try!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul-Seekers-ebook/dp/B00DM5EBDM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372317069&sr=1-1&keywords=dean+crawford+soul+seekers

"Apocalypse" FREE for one week on iBookstore!

Yes, it's here! "Apocalypse" is iBookstore's Book of the Week and is a free download from today.

It's had 14 reviews, all of them 5 Stars! That should tell you all you need to know about whether this is a bargain promotion or not.

Enjoy!

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/apocalypse/id506086725?mt=11

THE CHIMERA SECRET!!

It's almost here!! And I can reveal that the promotional price for the fourth Ethan Warner novel on Kindle is just £0.99!! This price will be available for one month only, and will end when the mass-market paperback is published. Don't miss the bargain price!

In addition, Apocalypse ( book three in the series ) will be iBookstore book of the week and will be available for one week as a free download from June 25th! This is a tremendous offer and well worth grabbing if you have not yet read any of the series. This version will also contain a sample chapter of The Chimera Secret, so if you're smart you could get both books for a bargain!

Enjoy!

CrimeFest 2013

I had a great time at this years' CrimeFest in Bristol. Despite appearing on a 9am panel next-door to another featuring international best-seller Jeffery Deaver we still drew a fair crowd and had a lively discussion about the joys and pitfalls of science and technology in thrillers.

My fellow panellists as seen in the photograph were the excellent moderator Emlyn Rees, authors L. A. Larkin, Alex Blackmore, Richard. J. Parker and myself.

A cracking time, and I hope to be back next year once again.

THE CHIMERA SECRET and SOUL SEEKERS!!

Awesome news!! In June and July I will have not one but two books being published!!

The fourth title in the Ethan Warner series, THE CHIMERA SECRET, will be released on June 20th, 2013 as an e-book at a special promotional price which I'll reveal closer to the time. The mass-market paperback will be released on July 18th.

In addition, a brand new Young Adult series will be launched at around the same time on e-book. The first novel in the series, "Soul Seekers", will also be available from Amazon at a promotional price.

Below are the covers for the two novels, featuring awesome new artwork that really grabs attention.

I'll update here with further news as soon as it's available...

 

 

Standing out from the crowd in publishing.

I've been reading a lot of blog posts lately by aspiring authors clearly disillusioned with the current state of the publishing market and daunted by the ( admittedly ) tremendous odds against achieving a traditional publishing deal.

Some have questioned whether it's worth approaching agents any more; others whether it's worth trying to complete with X millions of other titles, digital or traditional. Many show hints that they may abandon the chase as they don't relish maintaining a strong on-line presence to help advertise their novels and feel that their chances of success, in any published medium, are hopeless.

While it is very true that breaking through these days is extremely tough; that the publishing industry is going through immense change; that the ability of aspiring authors to self-publish via Amazon has changed the game, and that it may seem impossible to gain the attenion of a major publishing house, people were saying the same thing 30 years ago. It's just that the reasons for everything being so tough were different to those of today. It's ALWAYS been hard to break through.

No author, agent or publisher can predict the "next big thing". If they could we'd all be rich and famous. Except we wouldn't, because we'd all be doing it and the next big thing would therefore no longer be unique. The only way to stand out, to agents and to publishers, is to write the best book that you can. It may be galling when terrible novels like the Shades of Grey trilogy achieve such incredible success, but it should be noted that the author ignored the publishing industry and simply wrote what she wanted to. She self published, did well, got a traditional deal and the rest is history.

The moral of this story is not that self-publishing will propel you to global fame and fortune. For every E. L. James there are probably 100,000 self-published authors who have sold not a single copy of their treasured tomes. The moral is that you should write what you want to write about. Pick something about which you are passionate, that makes you feel that you cannot wait to put the story down on paper. If you want to buy self-help books on writing, go ahead. Attend conferences and speak to industry professionals, read other novels similar to your hoped-for best seller. But above all be passionate and excited about EVERY project you start because if you're not excited about it, believe me, that luke-warm enthusiasm is what will end up on the page and in front of an agent in months, or years, to come. Why take half-measures? Pick a subject that fills you with a great spark of excitement and your novel will be all the more vivid and colourful for it. THAT is what publishers and agents are looking for.

I recently read several Tweets by my literary agent, Luigi Bonomi Associates, ( paraphrased ) : "I'm reading a manuscript that is so good I want to live in this book: and they call this work!"

That author, whoever they are, probably just got through as you are hoping to and as I once did. It happens. If it didn't, there wouldn't be a publishing industry.

Stick with it.

Global Warming: the big deception.

Very occasionally I have posted here about the on-going confusion over mean global temperatures and the arguments on either side of the divide. These posts often get more comments than those on my books, which says something about how people view this most contentious of issues.

Recently I posted a comment on a fellow writer's blog ( The Scribbling Sea Serpent ) that mentioned my point-of-view on this, and got a response from a suitably anonymous person who clearly knew nothing about science, decrying my "denier" cult and blabbering on about the scientific consensus on global warming.

Today, across much of the media, it has been revealed that the rise in global mean temperatures over the last two decades has been: nothing. Data corrections via the Met Office and others have meant that all previous scaremongering predictions have not only failed to materialise, but have now been revised down. Our planet is indeed warming, but the slowing trend observed completely flies in the face of the endlessly repeated mantra that Carbon Dioxide output, which is still rising, is driving temperature change. It isn't. No matter which way the data is observed, human activity cannot be the principle driving force behind our planet's warming trend.

Millions of people have continuously ranted about the scientific "concensus", and all they've achieved is to reveal how little they know about science. There is never a "concensus" in science: there was once a concensus that the sun must be made of coal, its heat derived from gravitational collapse. Close, but no cigar. If our brightest minds had simply relied on "concensus" back then, we wouldn't have learned very much about our world today.

Science is all about the data, about continually revising that data and ignoring our own bias. The latest data crushes the decades of scaremongering by people like Al Gore and the IPCC. Should we sit back and relax? No, of course not. Climate change is real, and something's definitely happening. But next time you hear somebody say that they know all about the scientific concensus, just ignore them. Data is all that matters, and all proper scientific theories are subject to new data that can bring them down if their predictions can be found experimentally invalid. Anthropogenic global-warming is a scientific theory that has been found invalid. I can only hope that the political world, instead of worrying about the fall out from admitting such a catalogue of error, will allow research to move on and root out the real cause of our changing climate, or simply prove that observed temperature changes are within normal global parameters....

Of course, further data could reveal new information that reverses these new discoveries: however, the latest models suggest that warming has peaked, for want of a better description, and that the trend represents a cycle of rising and falling temperatures. Perhaps the latest rise has been influenced by human activity, but not enough to alter the cycle itself? Who knows. Only time, and better data, will tell us. Saying that there is a "concensus", or that the science is "settled", will never tell us anything.

For those who would like a more detailed write-up of why climate science has revealed the lack of anthropogenic warming, from a qualified scientist, then please read the following link:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/18/a-climate-of-scepticism/#more-77781

The recent news reports are easily found on Google etc.

Dean Crawford Books Facebook page.

For anybody who would like to continue seeing regular updates, I have a Facebook Fan Page which has been running for a while. All interesting bits of info and updates will be posted there, rather than on this blog;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dean-Crawford-Books/227989043878445

Feel free to "Like" the page if you want to. The more likes I get, the more interesting stuff I can do on the page!

IMMORTAL launch in USA & Canada

For readers in the USA and Canada, the hardback of "Immortal" launches tomorrow, January 8th. It's already had favourable reviews from Publisher's Weekly and industry bloggers. Below is the great cover design by Touchstone USA.